It’s a series filled with history during a time in America a lot of us don’t know much about. It’s focused on the Texas Revolution and the Texas Rangers. Donovan is playing Kit Acklin, who was a Texas Ranger with deep American roots, and it will debut on May 25th, almost one month from today.

Rather than get into more historical facts this time, here’s a new trailer for TR, with a vocal by Kris Kristofferson. You’ll like this, trust me.

Gay Man and Bloody McDonald’s Burger

A 24 year old gay man went to a McDonald’s in Washington state and they called him a faggot and served up a rare burger seeping with blood. But to be perfectly honest, this isn’t just a clear case of gay hate. It is bad, as it stands. But there really is more to the story.

As far as I can parse this, the gay guy overheard the manager calling out an employee and the guy didn’t like what he heard.

Then, the gay guy spoke to the employee who was getting yelled at:

‘I stated if she was my manager and was in my face, I would not tolerate that.’

The employee went back and told the manager (the manager is a woman) what the gay guy said. And this transpired:

‘As they both were speaking, they both turned around and looked at me and then I explained that he did not need to tell her. I then stated that I would gladly explain to her how I felt about her scolding an employee in front of customers and crew members,’ he said.

Because the manager is supposed to care about what the gay guy feels?The manager replied.

You can read more here. There are a few more interesting details. Even if the gay guy may or may not have been a douche in this case, it still doesn’t give anyone the right to refer to him with pejoratives or give him bad food. The manager could have just called him a douche and left it at that. But they always have to bring the gay angle into it.

Robin Williams’ Last Gay Role

This July there will be an indie film released titled, Boulevard. It stars the late Robin Williams and he’ll be playing a gay character who is coming to terms with being gay rather late in life.

‘Boulevard is a complex, life-affirming and surprising film and Robin’s final performance is absolutely remarkable,’ Kevin Kasha, head of acquisitions for Starz, tells Entertainment Weekly.

Producer Monica Aguirre Diez Barroso tells EW: ‘We are very excited about partnering with Starz Digital to get this beautiful movie out there.’

In the film, Williams’ character begins an unsettling relationship with a young hustler (Roberto Aguire) and his safe existence with his wife (Kathy Baker) is rocked to its foundation.

Even though it sounds like all the painfully stereotypical tragic gay books and films I’ve worked hard as a writer to stay away from in my lifetime, because not everything that is gay is tragic and painful, it also sounds like something that can and does happen in real life. And there’s no doubt that I will make a point of seeing it. Hollywood can’t help themselves…yet. They only associate gay story lines with pain and tragedy about sad sack figures who are gay and are “rocked” to their foundations because they are gay.

I’m gay. I’m happy. And even though I do face various forms of discrimination daily that I’ve learned how to deal with, each time I’ve been rocked to my proverbial foundation it had nothing to do with my being gay. Usually it’s when I lose my keys. So there you are.

I’m sure most of you know who Trevor Donovan is by now. Not Trevor Noah. I’m talking about Trevor Donovan. Part of Donovan’s fame came from playing one of the most popular characters in Beverly Hills 90210,“Teddy Montgomery.”

He’s also been in well known films that you can watch over and over again like Strawberry Summer. I know a lot of m/m romance readers follow Donovan on various social media outlets. I see you there commenting, retweeting, and liking. So I figured I’d start posting updates on a new mini-series Donovan is going to be in titled, Texas Rising. It will be on the History Channel this May (I believe May 25th, and I’ll confirm that in an upcoming post) and it’s been interesting to watch the buzz about Texas Rising because there isn’t much like this on TV right now.

In 1836, west of the Mississippi was considered the Wild West and the Texas frontier was viewed as hell on earth. Crushed from the outside by Mexican armadas and attacked from within by ferocious Comanche tribes—no one was safe. But this was a time of bravery, a time to die for what you believed in and a time to stand tall against the cruel rule of the Mexican General Santa Anna (Martinez). The heroic General Sam Houston (Paxton), the rag tag Rangers and the legendary “Yellow Rose of Texas” lead this story of the human will to win against insurmountable odds. At the end, the Texas flags stood tall and victorious, claiming a piece of history for all eternity.

Trevor Donovan is playing Kit Acklin, probably on of the most fascinating Texas Rangers of his day. There isn’t that much online about Acklin, but what is there will give you a good idea of what the world must have been like back then…and what Acklin must have been like. Before I ever heard of Texas Rising I read about Kit Acklin while doing research for my Chase of a Lifetimebooks so I could loosely base one of the characters on him.

Here’s something from one personal blogger who researched Acklin that’s one of the best out there.

I was following Donovan on social media last summer while he was shooting his scenes for Texas Rising down in Mexico. It was interesting to see photos and updates as they occasionally came in. A good deal of hard work went into making the series and followers saw first hand that Donovan really worked hard to become the character. From letting his hair grow long, to his mannerisms and actions. Very interesting to watch.

Before I wind things up with this post, I guess I should also mention that Donovan looks hot, and is hot playing Kit Acklin. Yes, I said hot. I don’t usually have trouble saying that with other guys I post about here, but this time it’s different. It’s a little creepy because when you follow someone on social media and get to know them through social media you think about them in a different way…not just as that ass. However, I would be highly remiss if I didn’t mention that ass (smile), and I know many of you are just as interested in Donovan’s photos as you are in Kit Acklin’s life story. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Film is, and always has been, more about visual than narrative.

Here are a few photos of Trevor Donovan as Kit Acklin. I have permission to use them all, just in case any of you know-it-all yentas doubt me or my concern for copyrights.

I’ll post more updates about Texas Rising and Trevor Donovan as they are released. You can follow Donovan on Twitter (@trevdon),Facebook. He posts regular updates and there are hashtags with even more information. There are a lot more photos of Donovan on Twitter, and some are with notables like Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Religious Florist Fined

I posted about this a while ago, and here’s the follow up, plain and simple.

A religious zealot who refused to do business with a gay couple has been fined AND forced to provide flowers for the gay wedding that started all this.

Barronelle Stutzman, from Washington, was given 60 days to pay a fine of $1,000 (€922) plus $1 for court costs and fees after refusing to sell flowers for a same-sex couple’s wedding.

Back in 2013, Robert Ingersoll – who had bought flowers from Stutzman for years – asked her to provide flowers for his wedding to Curt Freed.

But she refused, claiming it would go against her ‘relationship with Jesus Christ’.

If you have not seen the film, The Children’s Hour, make a point of seeing it soon. It was a mainstream film over 50 years ago with a lesbian theme…during a time when anything same sex related was done in whispers, with fear, and with a hefty amount of shame.

Now, over 50 years later, MacLaine is speaking about what it was like to film The Children’s Hour, and how the director had “trepidations.”

Director William Wyler ‘had trepidations about the subject matter – it was 1961 and nobody had done that,’ MacLaine said Sunday at a screening of the film during the TCM Classic Movie Festival in Hollywood which was attended by Gay Star News.

MacLaine, 80, believes the film was not as powerful as it could have been because of Wyler’s trepidation.

‘Scenes of brushing each others hair or ironing clothes – he cut some of them out and in doing so I think pared the picture down a little bit.’

The women are the best of friends and their school has just made money for the first time when their dreams are dashed when a malicious child falsely claims the women are lovers.

There’s more here. Like I said, you really should see this if you haven’t already. It shows what things were like back then, and now with these statements that is only reinforced with respect to what happened behind the scenes. It’s just a shame it took about 50 years to talk about the shame.

There’s a TV show I watch often called, The Property Brothers, for various reasons, one of which is that Tony and I have always been interested in real estate and we’ve always been invested in real estate. Although Tony doesn’t practice real estate professionally, he has his license in escrow and he got the license to know more about the business. When I’m not browsing through vicious vituperative publishing blogs for sport and sheer ridiculous entertainment, I’m perusing real estate web sites to see what’s happening in the market.

For those who don’t know, The Property Brothers is a TV show where identical twin brothers, Drew and Johnathan Scott, help people with the home buying experience. Drew is the realtor who helps the buyer find and purchase the home, and Johnathan is the licensed contractor who helps the new home owner renovate the home. I’m very critical about a lot of these shows on HGTV, and I’ve posted about that before. But I honestly have to admit that Johnathan Scott’s designs and renovations are always something I could personally live with. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do anything stupid.

But, there’s a lot we don’t know about the Scott brothers, and this article I found talks about ten secrets you don’t see posted everywhere.

Both Jonathan and Drew starred on the Canadian series Breaker High. Drew had a role on Smallville and Jonathan was on the X-Files! Not wanting to become “starving actors” they went into real estate. “During University we did our very first property, ended up flipping it–before flipping was a trend or cool. We did ended up making about a $50,000 dollar profit. We thought this was something, while still in college. We went back to school for construction and design and our company exploded and we were approached to do Property Brothers . . .”As a side note, there’s also a third Scott brother, J.D. Scott. He’s an author and a performer, and I think he needs a show of his own. From the few things I have seen, he sounds outspoken, too.

Since very early on, JD has been the writer of their family. He has penned many scripts, stories and articles over the years. He was also the founding member of Canadian sketch comedy ensemble “YFG –Another Comedy Troupe” and a member of the internationally known “Loose Moose Improv”. JD has always embraced all forms of entertainment from acting to music. He has performed in Las Vegas at Caesar’s as a celebrity impersonator for superstars Adam Lambert and David Bowie. In the mid 90’s, the brothers began investing in real estate as a means to fund their production projects. Their first company, Dividian Production Group has since evolved into Scott Brothers Entertainment. JD has also directed a couple of festival films in recent years and heads up the creative team for their company.Lesbian Publishing(Update: Someone sent me this link about women in publishing in the UK and I thought it was important enough to add to this post.)

I always maintain that the world is run by straight men…even the publishing industry. In many ways gay men face the same kind of discrimination as women from straight men, often on a daily basis. I get it constantly. It’s time for a change. Lesbian authors are now getting into self-publishing and some have been very successful. So when good friend in NY, Joanne, sent me an article about author Kiki Archer I had to post something about her.

Kiki Archer is a UK-based, best-selling, award-winning author. Her novels “But She Is My Student,” its sequel “Instigations,” and her latest offering “Binding Devotion,”all quickly became bestsellers in their genre, and Kiki is now working on her fourth lesbian fiction novel, due out late 2013.

A former teacher, Kiki left the field of education to be a stay at home mum and it was during that time that she turned her hand to novel writing. She loves the outdoors, anything sporty, and can always be found biking, quading or rambling with her two children.

Kiki is an active advocate for equal rights for the LGBT community and believes strongly in the importance of coming out. She is very vocal in the defence of equal marriage and is confident that ‘gay rights’ will soon become a non issue.

I think lesbian fiction, like gay fiction, has been getting more attention in the past few years. Small e-presses like Ravenous Romance have published lesbian fiction, and I’ve seen others as well. But for a long time most lesbian fiction was much like gay fiction in the sense that authors and readers didn’t have many choices. The small LGBT presses could only take on so many projects a year, and if a lesbian author was lucky enough to get into an anthology all she got was a flat fee and a free copy of the book. But now it seems as if lesbian authors are finding their voices in self-publishing as well. And the women readers I know personally are very excited about this. It also makes me wonder about the future of small presses, but that’s another post.

I can’t find a link to the article my friend sent me about Kiki Archer, but here’s a link to Archer’s web site where you can read more about her and her books. She’s been number one on the bestseller Amazon UK list for lesbian fiction. My book, Chase of Lifetime, hit number one on the UK Amazon bestseller list for a few weeks when it was first released and that was a nice feeling because I didn’t expect it from such a humble little venture. But with so many things changing in publishing these days, I’m starting to think that one of the best ways to go is self-publishing. At the very least, until you are lucky enough to get noticed by a huge publisher, you will always remain in complete control of your work. In other words, if your small publisher, like Loveyoudivine.com, decides to go out of business in a month’s time, you won’t be scrambling around like I am right now trying to get all your titles with them re-released as indie books. More to come on that topic very soon, too.

But for now I think it’s important to recognize the excellent lesbian authors out there who are changing the world. If you have never read lesbian fiction, I urge you to begin with Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown. This is not only a classic lesbian novel, but it’s as relevant today as it was forty years ago.

Cowboy Sex Slaves

I saw a link the other night on social media from LGBT book reviewer Gerry Burnie about cowboys as sex slaves and I was amazed when I read it. I’ve written my share of cowboy stories. I’m familiar with the rodeo circuit because I grew up not far from here. And I even have a good friend who owns a dude ranch in Montana. But I never knew the extent of this.

Cowboys were heavily exploited and usually brutally treated until such time as they became able to beg, borrow, buy or steal a gun. They were used not only as cheap and disposable labor, but also for sexual release by older and stronger men. Such adult men used the pretext of a scarcity of women to establish enforced homosexual relationships in remote camps and ranches comparable to the relationships for which today’s prisons are notorious.

It’s a very eye-opening, compelling article. You can read more here. And now that I know about it, I’m going to try to research it more and tackle the topic in the future in my own gay romance.

Author of over 100 published LGBT romance novels and stories, including AN OFFICER AND HIS GENTLEMAN and best selling VIRGIN BILLIONAIRE SERIES. Hates beets.
New Hope, PA Palm Springs, CA
ryan-field.blogspot.com